The Arkansaw traveler., 1887-08-06

that game he played an honest hand and never dealt from the bottom of the deck. The old man liked Joe better than all the rest of the boys, and made him present of a nice coat, which had more colors onto 1t than you can find in a rainbow. This 'riled' the other boys, and, just like some of you internal scoundrels last night"
 Up jumped four broad -shouldered fellows, who shouted, ''Simpson, hold on now !"
 Simpson quietly raised his two der ringers and knife and calmly an- swered:
 "Three of kind will beat two pair. Yes, you who cleaned out the bar-keeper and prevented him from attending meetin'. They thought they'd serve Joe an ugly trick. But, pards, you can rely on it, when mans on the right side of thing, nothing can prevent him from win ming. Just you boys remember that. The next time you play cards, play on the winnin' side and tair deals.
 Joe's pards got awfully mad at him, because of this fancy coat, and put their heads together to have Joe "turn up his toes." Now, you gentlemen who were 'spilin' for a muss' a mint ago, just pay attention and see how man on the right side always comes out on the top of the heap and beats them at their own game.
 ksTNhoxv I,ar h0l threw Joe ill and went away, suppos- ing he would die, but Judy, one of his 'pards,' thought it would be good scheme to sell him to some scalawags who happened to be go- ing by. They struck lead and took twenty dollars for Joe. Pards, that is the first account 1 ever read of d slave auction; and pards, you can be- lieve me or not, but the descendants of them same scalawags livin' out in the states kicked up horrible row few years ago, just because some of Us wanted to down the slave auction bizness. We did it all the same.
 "Somehow the old man got hold of Joe's fancy coat, on it he saw great patches of the ruddy. The way he made things whirl around on that ranch would have made the hair stand all over your head. 1 don't just re- member the hard words he said, but the expressions about that twenty dollar trade would have curdlcd the milk for a mile around.
 ''Take my word for 1t, the old man did feel awful bad, to think his best boy was dead and he forgot all about the hard things he said, when Joe was havin' the jim jams and dreamin' every night, and the old man asked him if he and the old woman, and the kids should git down on their mar row bones before him. Maybe Joe was fiyin' high just then, and like many of you boys when at home, once in while grew too fast and made the old folks draw a long sigh, and how mean you felt after you thought of it yourself
 "But Joe wasn't dead-oh no! he was the liveliest corpse in all that ranch, and gave the lie to that old sayin', Whoever the gods think most OI HluSt peg out young.
 "That crowd of scalawags who were out twenty dollar gold piece. got sick of their bargain and sold Joe over again to another heathen
 q don't remember how much they got, but my honest opinion is they were ashamed to say what they lost on the deal. Served 'em right to lose for dealin' in human flesh. Pards, our Creator never intended that kind of bizness should last very long, and did you never notice that the partners in the diggins carryin' on such buy in and sellin' always got into fight and somebody got hurt?
 "This heathen drew a prize when he got Joe, and no mistake. He run a first-class boardin' house in the city: had lots of help, and wanted an hon. est boss for the claim. He saw something in Joe's eye that told him, There's your man. So you see, no matter what the circumstances are about a square dealer some one will find him out and pay well for his ser- vices.
 "Joe took in the situation at the first glance, and set to work at once to get things into better shape around that eatin' house. The first dash he made was at the bill of fare, especially the hash part of it.
 Reports had reached his ears that there was not enough of care in cookin'. One man told him that few mornings ago in his plate of hash he found a rag of red flannel and brass button, another said, it was a common thing to bite into a second hand tooth-pick, third was much troubled because of the 'oid- margin allowed in the butter.